Monday, April 30, 2012

I have a faux altered book, one of my favorite types of projects to make, using one of my favorite Rogue Redhead Designs stamp sets, Relish Reading, to share as my last post as part of the Rogue Crew.

When you open the door, you find a girl sitting under a tree with a book on her lap intermittently reading and dreaming. I have loved this particular image since the set was released because of a silly childhood memory. You see, I've always been kind of an "indoor girl" and as a kid when my mom would find me lost in the pages of a book yet again, she would tell me that I needed to go outside and do something. So I took my book outside and continued reading under a tree!

The girl's image inside the book is stamped on top of the text stamp from the set lightly stamped with Tea Dye DI and colored with colored pencils.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

It's week #3 at Compendium of Curiosities Vol.2 Challenge where page 46 of Tim's book has this week's theme - Marbled Stains. I have to admit that this technique was frustrating until I started to try it with something other than a tag. My collage is done using the technique on specialty stamping paper which gave me an effect I liked better. On the main piece, I used 2 blues and a green, and then I did another piece with all the reds and hand cut that piece into hearts. I added a doodle-embellished handwritten word along with other doodling and added my background piece to a vintage dictionary page and corrugated cardboard.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Week 2 at CC2C and you'll find the challenge technique on page 58 - Faux Patina. I tried it out on the metal pieces that I created by using a frame embossing folder on a piece of metal and then cutting the pieces out. I collaged them onto my backgrounds that were left over scraps from other projects - one piece sprayed with Adirondack colorwash and the other uses distress inks for a wrinkle free distress background along with a text stamp.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

So excited that Linda is back hosting another Compendium of Curiosities Challenge based on Vol.2 of the fun book by Tim Holtz! I loved working through all the techniques in Vol.1 and am excited to do it again. The first challenge is from page 66 - Custom Foam Stamps and here's my tag made using my custom stamp from the spikey flower of the tattered florals die. I stamped it on a tag colored with antique linen and weather wood stains and a subtle French script stamp from Red Lead. I doodled the flowers over the stamping and added book text leaves and lace for the stems, both of which were colored with Glimmer Mist.

Monday, April 16, 2012

The newest Rebel Challenge at Rogue Redhead Designs is an interesting one - use any colors from the Pantone Spring 2012 Fashion Colors list and create a stamped project. The list includes 10 colors - quite a few to choose from! My idea was to use a masterboard concept, creating a colorful, random background on a 9x12 sheet of watercolor paper and then.....

...see how many cards I could make!

My supplies were simple: I used two watercolor crayons for my base color inspired by Pantone's bellflower and margarita and stamped the background from Beach Babes after coloring on the stamp and spritzing with water. Those two colors - periwinkle and yellow green - really evoke spring flowers to me. Then I stamped the bud from Floriculture with archival ink, inspired by Pantone's solar yellow, and finally randomly stamped text and a border from Relish Reading with StazOn - the only dark blue ink I had - inspired by Pantone's sodalite blue.

The easiest card to make was to cut a piece of the masterboard to create a background.

Next, I cut out simple shapes, attached them to a card base and roughly doodled around them.

Another idea was to cut inchies and inch-and-a-half-sies (what are you supposed to call the bigger version lol!) and arrange them in grids.

Finally I still had scraps left, so I cut them into strips of random widths and haphazardly wove them into a pattern. I was amazed at how many cards you could produce from the masterboard. I even used two more Pantone colors for inspiration - starfish is similar to the kraft card base - and the tiny strips of dark brown are inspired by driftwood. All the stamped sentiments on each card are from Bits and Pieces.

I'm not sure that Shar had it in mind to use quite that many colors in one project when she set the challenge, but I had a lot of fun with all the different ones I chose. Hope you'll join in and add your project on the challenge post HERE before May 7th - one random winner will receive $15 to use in the Rogue Redhead Designs store!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Since I recently posted about my flower canvas class at Your Maine Stamper, I thought it would be appropriate to share some photos. In the first one we're just getting ready to begin.

And now the Glimmer Mist is out! Look at all that wonderful ink!!!!!!

Here's a photo of everyone's projects. We had to photograph them flat because the glue was still drying. I have to say that the most rewarding thing as a teacher is seeing the different ways everyone takes your idea. Everyone made the flowers and the canvases starting with the same plain supplies of watercolor paper and book paper with tissue paper for the canvases, but then they infused their own personality and style to make a finished project that is truly their own. I love that!!!!

And as I promised, inky fingers could not be avoided and I have the picture to prove it!!!!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Or rather open the Stampers' Sampler to page 42 to see one of my faux altered books!!!!!

Here's my picture for you to see of it opened.

I love this photo stamp from Oxford Impresions - doesn't it make you want to curl up with a good book in a quiet corner and escape for awhile into your imagination? I used a Stampers Anonymous Stamp for the script background and the perfect word stamp "Read" from Rogue Redhead Designs.

It's always such a thrill to flip through the pages of a magazine and see something you submitted, and it's just as fun to see other friends included in this issue, too: Debbie Kaste, Lynne Moncrieff, Lynn Stevens, and Louise Granlund. Congratulations to my super-talented, creative friends!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Anyone who reads my blog knows that I have a love of handmade books and journals. Here are two I made recently that are based on Mary Ann Moss's Remains of the Day Journal with a bit of influence from Karen Grunberg who used Mary Ann's journal for her December Daily project. (Check out Karen's blog post HERE to see photos and a video of her journal.) This first journal has a canvas cover with scraps of fabrics sewn on.

This is a picture of the entire cover opened up. You can also see the sewn in signatures from this view.

Here are the inside pages made from patterned paper. Some of them have pockets that will be perfect for tucking things in.

One problem I ran into with this journal was in making the spine too small to accommodate all the pages I wanted to use, so that meant that I needed to make a second journal, of course!!!

Here's my second version. This canvas cover I painted first with gesso, and then with washes of acrylic paints.

It opens the same way. Not sure yet if I'll decorate the cover further....we'll see.....

These inner pages are also a mix of patterned paper and I've added washi tape in some areas. I think I'm going to have lots of fun filling the pages :-)

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

OK, so I've never used my blog for advertising the classes that I teach, and I thought ..............................................why not?

This is a picture of the project for the class I'm teaching Saturday April 14th at Your Maine Stamper in Winthrop, Maine. It's an 8x8 mixed media canvas where I will teach how to make an assortment of paper flowers using watercolor paper, book paper and of course Glimmer Mist that will be placed onto a canvas that is altered with tissue paper, gesso and water soluble oil pastels. I have had such a fun time in previous classes playing with a terrific bunch of creative people and hope they will learn some fun techniques that can be used in other projects, too. But be warned.......you will leave the class with not only a cool project to brighten your wall, but some VERY COLORFUL FINGERS!!!!! ;-)

Monday, April 2, 2012

Do you have those days when you decide that you're going to play with a specific set of supplies and just see what happens? Well, this is the result of one of those days! I wanted to play with metal, alcohol inks and my embossing tools and this card is the end result. I started by stamping the swirl from Rogue Redhead Designs' Relish Reading on the back of my metal piece with StazOn and then flipped the piece back and forth to emboss and refine and emboss and flatten the background and emboss some more - it does take some time and patience :-)

These are the supplies I used for the embossing.

Here's a close up so you can see the raised detail. I added details with a ball and cup tool and a decorative wheel from Ten Seconds Studio. Next I added alcohol inks (Ranger: Pool, Clover and Citrus) over the metal then sanded to reveal the silver of the aluminum in the swirls. I also swirled a small brass brush over all of it which allowed me to stamp the lily of the valley sprigs and quote from Floriculture. I lightly traced around the stamped image and puffed it a bit from the back to give it dimension too and then added another layer of alcohol inks around the embossing and stamped areas. Having the inks already out allowed me to make a perfectly matched piece of glossy cardstock to layer behind. A really fun way to get more out of your stamps!